The Newhouse family is moving to chop the frequency of its Syracuse Post-Standard daily to three days a week, and insiders say it is now inevitable that the same move will eventually befall its other Northeast newspapers, including the Star-Ledger in Newark.
Asked point-blank if a similar move is afoot at the Star-Ledger as well as at the Trenton Times, the Jersey Journal and the Staten Island Advance, Steven Newhouse, the exec who is overseeing the newspaper conversions, would only say, “We have no plans at the moment.”
But tensions are running high at the Star-Ledger that such a move is already being quietly orchestrated and that resources are already being funneled to NJ.com.
Union contracts with pressmen and truckers unions are roadblocks to immediate change. An insider said that the company will eventually renegotiate them and convert the Star-Ledger and other papers to three times a week.
In May, the family said it was converting New Orleans’ Times-Picayune from a daily to a thrice-weekly schedule come this fall as it reorganizes its digital and print into a new company, NOLA Media.
In Syracuse, a similar move is being implemented as a new company, Syracuse Media Group, will now oversee the print version that will appear Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday beginning Jan. 1 as well as the Syracuse.com site.
The Newhouse family does not appear interested in selling its battered papers. When Tom Benson — owner of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and NBA Hornets — and others pressed the family to sell the New Orleans paper, Newhouse insisted, “The Times-Picayune is not for sale.”
The paper is still profitable, but advertising revenue has been eroding.
In Syracuse, Editor and Publisher Stephen A. Rogers told staffers, “The economic model that has supported the Post-Standard and newspapers around the country is no longer sustainable.”
The job cuts surrounding the moves are among the steepest in the history of newspapers. New Orleans will see about 20 percent of its staff chopped, and other Newhouse newspapers in the South where daily publication is being scrapped have faced the same level of cutbacks.
So long, Singer
Sally Singer is out as editor-in-chief of the New York Times fashion supplement, T, after less than two years on the job.
The news, first reported by Women’s Wear Daily’s website. was confirmed in a memo from Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson.
Singer left a top job as news and features editor under Anna Wintour at Vogue to take the job. She had been pushing to broaden the Times insert beyond pure fashion, even putting Mick Jagger on the cover.
But she found that fashion photographers and stylists still preferred the glossy fashion magazines over the slick newsprint of T. Abramson was also said to be disappointed with some coverage.
In her memo, Abramson said, “Sally’s contributions are clear to anyone who’s read the magazine during her tenure. Gorgeous visuals, interesting stories and enterprising features — both in print and online — have been hallmarks of her stewardship.”
The search is on for a replacement. Singer could not be reached for comment.
A reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times leaked a column by Maureen Dowd to the CIA in advance of its publication in the paper.
Dowd, writing about the movie on the killing of Osama bin Laden, “Zero Dark Thirty,” criticized the White House for “outsourcing the job of manning up the president to Hollywood.”
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, obtained the back-and-forth between the CIA and Times reporter Mark Mazzetti under a Freedom of Information Act request.
In the e-mail accompanying the article, Mazzetti wrote, “This didn’t come from me . . . and please delete after you read. See, nothing to worry about,” according to Politico.
While sending out advance copies of stories is considered verboten, Mazzetti, whose voicemail said he is out on “book leave,” doesn’t seem to be in too much trouble.
Managing Editor Dean Baquet said, “I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that’s going on, you’d know it is much ado about nothing.” Dowd did not return a call.
Mazzetti via e-mail referred calls to a Times spokeswoman, who said, “Maureen Dowd asked Mark Mazzetti to help check a fact for her column. In the course of doing so, he sent the entire column to a CIA spokesperson shortly before deadline. He did this without the knowledge of Ms. Dowd. The action was a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards.”